Former Hazelwood coke works could become green manufacturing plant
It sounds like a perfect match — a new green-focused manufacturing plant and a 178acre riverfront tract designed to be the most sustainable in the region.
The former LTV Coke Works in Hazelwood is one of the sites under consideration for a manufacturing plant being proposed by Nexii Building Solutions, a Canada-based green technology company.
Craig Rippole, president and partner of Trinity Commercial Development, the Emsworth company working with Nexii and actor Michael Keaton to develop the plant, confirmed Wednesday that the site, now known as Hazelwood Green, is among those being studied.
While Mr. Rippole wouldn’t say whether the old mill is the frontrunner, he acknowledged that it appears to be the “perfect fit” given shared values like sustainability, social impact and investment, and equitable development.
“There are a lot of good sites in Western Pennsylvania, but, certainly, Hazelwood Green, Mill 19, it’s unique. It clearly has distinguished itself. It’s all things sustainable,” Mr. Rippole said.
Mr. Keaton, the Pittsburgh native who is partnering with Nexii to open the plant, toured Hazelwood Green and its Mill 19 redevelopment being done by the Regional Industrial Development Corp. earlier this week.
It was easy to figure out from a photo of the actor with Mayor Bill Peduto and Sam Reiman, director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, that the site was in the running for the plant.
Mr. Peduto held a block in his hand with “NEXII” written on it.
The manufacturing plant, the company’s second in the United States and sixth overall, will produce sustainable panels Nexii says can reduce carbon emissions and create
more energy-efficient buildings and construction materials.
It will be the first facility built with Nexiite, the company’s own product, an alternative to concrete that is meant to make buildings more environmentally friendly.
That seems to fit neatly with the ambitions for Hazelwood Green by Almono LP, the ownership group made up of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Heinz Endowments and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.
Almono has vowed to make the former Coke Works a global leader in sustainability. It has the highest such standards of any development in the region, with all vertical buildings requiring an energy and environmental rating of at least LEED Gold.
It also has pledged to make the development on the last of the city’s brownfields carbon neutral. The Hazelwood Green website touts a “new model for economic development in Pittsburgh, one that is aligned with community and grounded in principles of sustainability, equity and inclusive economic opportunity.”
Nexii, Mr. Rippole said, “fits perfectly within those values” and shares the same goals.
The company was impressed by the emphasis on sustainability, from stormwater management to Mill 19, with what is believed to be the largest single sloped solar array in the United States on its rooftop.
“The guys from Vancouver were blown away by it,” Mr. Rippole said.
Asked how Mr. Keaton, who describes himself as an “unapologetic environmentalist,” liked the site, Mr. Rippole replied, “I don’t think you can go to Mill 19 and Hazelwood Green and not be impressed with what they’ve done.”
Mr. Keaton, who has signed on as an investor in the Nexii project, plans to take an active role in its development. The actor’s family members had lived near a former brownfield in McKees Rocks.
Nexii is ideally interested in building from the ground up rather than repurposing a building.
RIDC has a vacant site next to Mill 19, a 265,000square-foot complex built from the bones of an old coke works structure, that “possibly” is large enough to accommodate the plant Nexii is planning, president Don Smith said.
“It’s a tight fit,” he noted. Tenants in one of the Mill 19 structures include Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and Catalyst Connection. Autonomous vehicle startup Aptiv has taken all the space in an RIDC-built second building at Mill 19.
Such tenants could offer “synergy” with Nexii, Mr. Smith said. He added he wasn’t sure how serious the company is about locating at Mill 19.
“It really remains to be seen whether we’re in the hunt or not,” he said. “Obviously, we’d love to have a great company like that at our site.”
The Nexii plant, slated to open in 2022, could create more than 300 jobs. The company has been working with the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, an economic development group, to “identify underserved communities where this initiative can be realized.”
Nexii also is considering a site in Beaver County and a couple of others in Allegheny County, Mr. Rippole said. It hopes to come up with a short list of sites in the next 60 to 90 days and then make a selection.
While Hazelwood Green seems to align with what Nexii values “very nicely,” that’s not to say the company wouldn’t find a similar vibe at other properties in other communities, he stressed.
The interest in Hazelwood Green comes as Almono prepares to open on Saturday a new $9 million plaza, the site’s first public outdoor space.
Occupying a rectangular 2-acre space south of Mill 19, the plaza features a signature water feature built from 16,000 square feet of granite; swings designed and fabricated using a robotically steam-bent wood form; a tree nursery and meadow; and a solar canopy that provides shade and protection while helping to generate power for the site.
Other amenities include a water bottle filling station and water fountain, bike racks, power connections and a Healthy Ride Bike Share station.
Among the public art is a 2,000-pound barn swallow crafted from repurposed steel and other metals. The sculpture includes rebar collected from the renovation of the old Roundhouse at Hazelwood Green.